Ice Cold
by Becominglight
Summary: Being stuck in the refrigerated container with Castle leads Kate to discover something she'd thought she'd lost.  Threaded through eps 3.16  and 3.17, Rated M for safety, two-parter. Caskett UST.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Mine? Really? In what dimension?

Part 1 of 2

Spoilers: 3x16, 3x17

**Ice Cold Revelations**

_They lie huddled together for warmth in the refrigerated container. They are so still, they could be dead but for the shaky plumes of condensation that spill from their blue tinged lips. The man is propped up against the ridges of the wall, the sting of ice metal penetrating through his jacket and the thick cotton of his jeans but he can't feel it any more. Neither can he feel the body of the woman tucked into his side, or feel the rise of her chest as it labours to suck in the burning cold air. The uncontrollable shakes from an hour earlier are dying down, their bodies can no longer afford the energy, they need what little is left to keep the vital organs functioning. This is when it becomes dangerous, when lethargy leads to sleep and sleep leads to death. Their eyes grow heavy from the ice crystals on their lashes, the beating of their hearts slow and the remaining heat slowly drains into the cold hard metal that will become their tomb._

The cold is beginning to work on them and they are trapped. Kate Beckett pulls the hood of her sweater tighter over her head and zips her jacket fully closed as she furtively looks for another means of escape but she already knows there is none. The steel door is locked and it's the only way out. Rick Castle is standing in the middle of the space as if he's rooted to the spot, his arms wrapped around himself. He looks like he's in a straight jacket.

"I could really use a silver lining right about now." Says Kate.

Castle draws near.

"Yeah. Um... I wish I had one."

She stamps her feet and hugs herself, her head bends forward allowing long strands of auburn hair to fall free from her hood masking the desperation her face surely betrays. She laughs, a quick, short bark, her mind suspended between disbelief that they find themselves in this untenable position, and the wild hope that the means for their escape will miraculously appear, even as she knows it won't.

"What do we do, Kate?" His eyes seek hers. He is scared, as scared as she is but she hides it better.

"We wait."

She can feel her body begin to shiver.

More pressing than the cold is oxygen. The container is airtight and with two sets of lungs, they will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before they freeze to death. They've already used up precious lung fulls banging uselessly like rag dolls against the door. So now they stand still and slow their panicked breaths because there is nothing else they can do. Castle is watching Kate and she is looking back. Never have things been so dire. They are both imaging the last hours of their lives, the inevitable moment when the cold will overcome their bodies, making them sink to the ground. Once they are on the ground, their core temperature will drop dramatically until their organs will no longer be able to sustain basic, life giving functions. Then their bodies will give out. The horror of this reality is reflected in their gaze and Kate looks away and blinks rapidly to hold back tears. She thinks of her father, who will be left without a wife and a daughter and imagines the abyss of his loss. She thinks of Josh and what they might have had. She thinks of her work mates – her family at the 12th Precinct where now two seats will stand empty. She thinks of the files in her desk labelled Joanna Beckett and the murder no one will care enough to solve. Her chest tightens and her breaths come faster, the injustice too much. She knows the world is harsh, she knows it is careless of the pain it causes but somehow she had believed that good would be triumphant and the bitterness of disappointment rises in her with every involuntary shake of her body.

She can hear the chatter of Castle's teeth and when she looks to him again, his eyes are full of an emotion she has seen before. One they have never dared speak of. The moment is pregnant with the things unsaid because of the assumption that there would always be tomorrow but now there isn't a tomorrow. They have run out of time.

And yet neither speak.

Time slows and then Castle pulls down the zip with trembling fingers and opens his jacket. He crooks his head, raises an eyebrow. There is nothing cocky or self-assured in his invitation, no innuendo. How could there be at a time like this? Kate closes the space between them, sliding her arms under the jacket to rest against his back and pressing her torso to his. He wraps the jacket around her, holding it here with his arms, his cheek coming to rest against hers. She can feel his heart beat against her breast. It's steady and strong, it's reassuring. She is so grateful that he is here.

In spite of the body warmth, their hands and feet are ice cold. They've begun to sway. It was imperceptible at first, under the shaking of their legs, but the movement is growing. They rock, like lovers at a dance, their eyes closed, only this is a dance for survival in which every available surface of their body is pressed together because it means a moment's more warmth. It's hard to say how long they move like this.

Eventually they slow their swaying and then stop. They are growing tired and weak, it is getting harder to stand. Their shaking increases and the air grows thin.

"We should sit." Kate says, teeth chattering. So they do. They try to arrange themselves comfortably but there is no comfortable way to lay oneself down to die. They shake and rattle and loose feeling in their arms and legs. Kate is acutely aware as each moment slips away and she smells a metal tang in her nostrils, hears their shattered breaths, tastes the sourness of her fear, feels the body against hers. Her mind grows tired and sluggish and half formed thoughts float through her mind. She wonders how long they'll lie here before they'll be found. She wonders what they will think when they see them in each other's arms. She feels the world slipping into pockets of darkness, pricking the edges of her vision.

"Castle? You there?" The sound is soft but it echoes sadly against the walls.

It's been hours since they last spoke.

"Yeah, I'm right- I'm right-I'm right here."

His voice draws her back towards life.

"I always thought, being a cop, I'd take a bullet. Never thought I'd freeze to death." She says. She's thinking about how this may be last thing she will ever say. Each word takes a monstrous, distorted importance and somehow nothing she can say can ever measure up to the pressure of making them count.

"Hey. W-we're not dead yet." She hears him trying for levity but to her mind it can only be a ruse. Even his careless optimism can't survive in the reality, can it? But despite the thought, she discovers a little nugget of steely strength and she realises something she hadn't been sure of in over a decade.

When her mother had been murdered, she had teetered on a knife edge. On one side had lain darkness, warm and inviting, one in which pain could vanish with oblivion. The other side had been light, harsh, uncompromising light that shone so brightly it burnt. Her father had stood in the light. Her friends had stood in the light. Her boyfriend, Tommy, had stood in the light. They had clasped their arms around her and pulled her towards them and she had gone like a deadweight, but she had gone. When she had gained enough distance she had decided to stay there, in the light, because only in the light could she find the people who had killed her mother but the promise of easy relief had hummed around her for a long time. It is only now as darkness threatens its finality that she realises that as hard and terrible as the light can be, she wants it because it can also be so strikingly beautiful. It can be breath taking. It can be unexpected and wonderful. In this moment she realises that she does not want to die, not like this. She still has work to do, a life to live and in her floating, half lucid state of mind, she knows Castle is one of the most unexpected and wonderful gifts she has been given. She feels a tide of emotion well up for this man.

"I just wish this was one of your books and you could re-write the ending."

"I'm s- I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"F- for being me. Going rogue. Getting you into- into this. If we hadn't gone- gone rogue..."

"Oh, shh. Castle, no. Okay? Shhh. You were right. We found the bomb. We were just too late, okay?"

If anyone should feel culpable, it should be her – for allowing a civilian to put himself in continuous danger, for growing to depend on him in all the small and big ways that meant that she had stopped fighting to get him to leave even thought it was always a matter of time before his boyish enthusiasm got him into serious trouble. Instead she had slowly extended her hand out to him, allowed him to clasp it tightly and dragged him along with her. It was she who should feel sorry, not him.

The edges of darkness are advancing again and she can't fight them off. She gathers her energy and slowly turns until she can see him, her head cradled on his shoulder. She wants the last thing she sees to be his face.

"Castle. Thank you...for being there."

Somehow she lifts her hand up and her frozen finger scraps the cleft of his chin. She's remembering the warmth of his lips on hers. It was only a month ago, but it's another world. She will never feel that again.

"Always."

It's suddenly important that he know how much he means to her, how deeply he has changed her, how much joy he has infused into her world.

"I just want you to know how much I... "

But the darkness clouds her eyes and the vestiges of strength dissipate from her body before the words can be spoken. Her eyes close and her hand falls limp into his lap.

"Hey, Kate. Stay with me. Kate. Stay with me."

A slither of light from the outside world pours in from the door that is cracked open. They see the huddled figures against the wall, sitting like two ice statues. Kate's body is cradled in Castle's lap in a lover's embrace but no one who knows them will ever say anything. They are alive, they will live and that is all that matters.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Mine? Really? In what dimension?

Part 2 of 2

Spoilers: 3x16, 3x17

**Ice Cold Revelations**

CHAPTER TWO

She is the first to wake. She opens her eyes to see a blurry face before her, she sees the mouth widen into a smile, the edges of the eyes crinkle. It's Josh. She frowns, confused. Josh is not here. Josh is on an airplane, he is heading to an assignment for Doctors without Borders, he's made his choice and it doesn't include her. Her brain is still fuzzy from the cold and she can't seem to connect his being here with what she thought she knew.

"I'm so glad that my presence here brings you such joy." He says laughingly.

"I… but you're…how did…Castle?"

"Shhhh. Rest. You're disorientated and I want to finish this drip before you run off again, Kate."

"Castle." She demands again.

"He's right here."

She turns her head and sees him within touching distance. They are wedged into an ambulance on gurneys, swathed in blankets with black woollen hats on their head. She can still see the blue tinge around his lips.

"He's okay?"

"He'll be fine. His core temperature was a lower than yours, so he'll take a little longer to come around."

They are hooked up to IV drips and she can feel the warm fluid infusing itself into her veins and warming her chilled blood. Her fingers are starting to burn with the return of feeling and it's uncomfortable so when Josh opens up a muesli bar, she accepts the distraction when he holds a piece to her lips.

"I can feed myself, you know." She says after the first bite but he shakes his head feeds her another piece. She chews slowly, looking at him.

"You came back…"

"Yeah. I came back."

She smiles. She feels elated. Josh's features soften and he seems relieved, like he's made the right choice by being here. When she's finished eating he screws the wrapper up and shoves it into his pocket. He pulls up her blanket and extracts the IV from her arm.

"You'll be dizzy and tired. You should really get sleep…. But I guess it would be pointless to tell you not to get back to work for a few days."

"Josh – there's a … this case – it's time sensitive and if we don't catch them, the consequences could be catastrophic."

"I overheard. It's about a bomb, right?"

"Yeah. A bomb."

"And I guess that's got something to do with where you and Castle ended up?"

"These guys aren't messing around."

He looks at her and she can see that he's genuinely afraid for her.

"We'll be careful."

He's got no choice but to accept that although he's struggling with it. He moves over to open the ambulance doors and for the first time it occurs to Kate that they are still on site. Siren lights are flashing and she can see half a dozen cars littered in her line of sight. It's still night but she can see the edges of the sky starting to lighten with the beginning of dawn.

The moment Josh is out the doors Ryan and Esposito are there, their faces creased with worry and she feels a surge of affection for her boys. Montgomery is not far behind and she sits up, slipping her hat off. She tells them what happened. They in turn tell her that little headway has been made but that they're scrounging the area for further clues.

The burning in her extremities is getting more uncomfortable, so she tentatively gets up and with Josh's help starts walking around the ambulance to help get her body functioning again but before she does that she leans over Castle and pulls off his black woollen hat. His hair has been flattened so she runs her fingers through his short brown hair, making sure to part it just the way he likes it. She runs her hand down his stubbled cheek. He looks so peaceful.

xxx

Kate is leaning against a car recalling how only the day before she had sat across from Castle, telling him how she wants a committed relationship. It feels so long ago now.

She'd fought with Josh that morning when he had come by to say good-bye. They'd been talking about it for a week, about his continuous absences for his job and he'd slowly teased it out of her – that she didn't want him to go again. She hadn't explicitly said that she wanted more commitment or that she wanted to take the relationship to its next level but they had both known what she had meant and he'd left anyway. She'd needed to say it out loud to someone.

As she's thinking these thoughts, she hears Caslte calling her name as he wakes. Moments later he's sidling up to her and she's feeling self-conscious because they'd shared something, in that frozen container. They'd been in each other's arms at the moment they thought was to be their deaths. They'd shared their mortality, binding them together in a deep unfathomable way.

This makes her feel conflicted because Josh is here, he came back for her and he's the one she should be feeling bound to, shouldn't she? But she has no further opportunity to think on these things because there is a dirty bomb in New York City and they are running out of time.

xxx

They have less than five minutes before the bomb goes off. They are racing down Broadway in pursuit of the black van and its deadly cargo. They are arguing because Castle wants to take a short cut. He shouldn't be arguing, he shouldn't even be here. How is it that it had been so clear, sitting in that frozen container that she must protect him and yet, here they both are, together, racing towards ground zero. How has she let him stay?

Then they are before the bomb and they don't know how to diffuse it.

They are going to die, they are going to die, they are going to die. Them and thousands of New Yorkers. Radiation will spill down the streets, poisoning those that survive and it will be Hiroshima, it will 9/11, it will be the end of the world as they know it.

Seconds tick away, Castle takes her hand and penetrates her with his eyes, they seem to be saying to her 'yes the world is ending but it ends with us together' and then he grabs the wires and yanks, hard. Notting happens. The bomb lies there in the truck, big, sprawling and stupid. Today will not be the end of the world.

Kate feels joy. She leaps into Castles arms and never has she been happier to feel arms around her; perhaps the world isn't quite as harsh as she thought. Everything seems crisper, the colours brighter, she has never been so glad to draw breath. And Castle, this beautiful man, he did it, he saved them.

She is still smiling an hour later, as she sits at the 12th Presinct, drinking a celebratory beer with her team. She's been surreptitiously glancing at Castle every few minutes to reassure herself that they have both somehow survived this last 48 hours. And when they stand outside Montgomery's office alone and Castle turns to her, a softness in his gaze that he reserves only for her, her heart starts to flutter because she's pretty certain that he's about to cross their unspoken line and it frightens her because she wants him to. But before he can finish, his eyes have shifted, he's bitten back, made his escape and she knows why when she feels Josh's arms slip around her waist. She allows him to hold her but her eyes are following Castle over her shoulder. It is with a mixture of regret but mostly relief that she sees the elevator doors close on him.

xxx

That night, as Josh moves inside her, as she clings to him and buries her head in his neck, for the first time it's not Josh that she is thinking about. In the last two days she's discovered that she wants to do more than just survive to find her mother's murderer, she wants to live. She wants to love. She wants to feel the wild exhilaration of unfettered joy.

It's a revelation.

Bowled over, undone, she can no longer hold the unbidden image of Castle – he who is inexplicably entwined with this discovery - out of her mind. Her senses are flooded by thoughts of him, of his smell, his touch, the taste of his lips and when she comes, it's long and hard. Of all the things that have happened in the last two days, this is the most significant, and it scares her. This, more than anything tells her just how deep it goes.

"You're trembling, Kate." Josh says. His eyes are kind and he strokes her back.

Kate smiles weakly and then turns so that he doesn't see the tear pooling in her eyes. He cradles her.

"I love you, Kate."

Perhaps he though that orgasm was for him. Maybe he misread the vulnerability in her eyes. The words make her heart squeeze uncomfortably. She takes the hand resting on her stomach and kisses it but says nothing – she can lie about many things, but not this. She knows she doesn't love Josh, but she wants to, so badly. He falls asleep while her eyes stay wide.

She had said to Castle that Josh's return meant that they had a chance but now – she's not sure. It feels like everything she wants, everything she thinks she wants is built on quicksand, it's all crumbling and in the wake of her crumbling foundations, she can't deny it any longer. She and Castle – they are circling ever closer and soon the pull will overwhelm them and they will collide, she feels the inevitability of it as she lies there. They have both fought it, tooth and nail, they have resisted with indomitable will, they have denied themselves but this thing they have, it will not be fought, it will not be resisted and it will not be denied.

The only thought that calms her beating heart is that as inevitable as it is, it will not happen tonight nor tomorrow, the foundations of her world can stay intact for a little longer and she needs that, desperately. Tomorrow, Castle will swagger in, two coffees in hand, one for him and one for her. He will flash her his smile, a twinkle in the eye and sit in his green faux-leather chair and proceed to congratulate himself in flowery, high-flying language on his heroic save of the city. She will put him in his place and it will feel like nothing has changed, even though it has.

Finally, she falls asleep.

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